Turkey - beautiful and unknown

                                                  My impressions of Antalya, Turkey

In the beginning of this year (2022) I was involved in the Erasmus+ “2Be or not 2BeeN” project once again in our visit in Turkey. Previously I participated in the visit in Italy, and I was a part of the student group which welcomed the Turkish and French students on their visits in Bulgaria.

My friends – Kremena and Peter, and I spent two weeks in Turkey, and we really enjoyed our stay there. We stayed in the city of Antalya, and we got to know it well. Antalya is a big, beautiful, and very well developed city, which is quite different from our small town, which made our experience there even more exciting.

We had many school activities during our stay in Antalya, so we got to meet many Turkish students and we became incredibly good friends with many of them as all of them were friendly and kind towards us. They showed us their classrooms which impressed us. They have the typical whiteboards and there are huge interactive devices used for studying purposes. We also participated in one of their philosophy classes as well as one of their art classes which were quite interesting. The schools also organized a couple of student concerts for us which were very entertaining.

We also visited many cultural monuments. Firstly, we went to the ancient city of Perge, the capital of Pamphylia. We also explored the Kursunlu waterfalls which are wonderful. We visited many amphitheaters, too as there are a lot of them near Antalya. We also had a trip to Pamukkale and an amazing voyage to Alanya. We travelled to mountain Davraz where we had the chance to try skiing or snowboarding. I chose snowboarding as I have always been interested in this winter sport. It was my first time trying it and it was thrilling. All these destinations really enriched us emotionally and we extremely enjoyed being in every single one of them. We saw the beautiful Turkish nature.

One of my favorite aspects of my stay in Turkey was the Turkish cuisine. Many of the Turkish dishes we tried were somewhat similar to some of the Bulgarian dishes due to the geographic proximity of both countries, so we were not shocked by their cuisine. However, we really liked the meals as they were very delicious. We also went to some shopping centers with some of our Turkish friends and they showed us their favorite places there. In addition to that, we went to Kaleici which is the old part of the city and has a lot of beautiful views of the sea.

In conclusion, I am really grateful that I have been involved in this project as it gave me so many opportunities to try different activities, see many interesting sights and experience many different things that I would have never experienced otherwise.

Ivaylo Andreev

Science and Maths Secondary School

                                                                                                                                          Vidin, Bulgaria